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" There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well. "

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" Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable. "

Sue Monk Kidd

Want

Voice

Pain

" Stories are amazing and powerful because they can resonate with people depending on their needs and experiences and speak truths we need to hear in that moment in time. "

" I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It's a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It's not something that happens overnight. It's an evolution of the heart. "

" I've always been a journal-keeper. I've always tried to write about how I'm experiencing life, and my feelings and thoughts. "

" I want my words to open a portal through which the reader may leave the self, migrate to some other human sky and return 'disposed' to otherness. "

" For me, writing a novel goes on for years, and the solitude goes on, too. It tends to swallow me at times. I know it's a problem when my husband sends the dog in to retrieve me. "

Sue Monk Kidd

Dog

Problem

" All I knew about bees when I started to write 'The Secret Life of Bees' was that they can live in a wall of your house, and that they make this incredible thing that I loved. "

" My stories have a deep spiritual core because I have a deep desire to understand things of the spirit, but yet I don't think I've written these stories from any kind of specific religious agenda because I don't think that would work. "

" I have a fondness for historical fiction, something wondrous like 'Wolf Hall,' but I'll read most anything as long as the story grabs my mind or my heart, and preferably both. You would be hard pressed, however, to find science fiction on my shelves. "

" I grew up in the American South and came of age in the 1960s, an incredibly turbulent time. It was as if the seams of American life were being ripped apart with riots and protests. "

" As an adolescent, I went to charm school, where I learned to pour tea and relate to boys, which, as I recall, meant giving them the pickle jar to unscrew, whether it was too hard for me or not. "

" We have to learn not to feel guilty about letting our imagination browse around, and you know, in writing fiction particularly. But I think, in any kind of writing, we have to learn to allow ourselves to approach it in a contemplative way. "

" I have an affinity for writing in the first person. I love the intimacy of being dropped inside the character. "

" Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it's accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another's eyes or heart. "

" I actually grew up in a house in which bees lived in one of the walls, and they lived there 18 years, in fact, so it wasn't a fleeting thing. "

" I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in. "

" I like to have a title before I start writing. "

Sue Monk Kidd

Title

Before

" I had begun to write novels because of a fierce, self-serving impulse in my own heart. I had not considered the potential in a book for felt communion, the bright largesse of intimately participating in the lives of other people. "

" 'The Secret Life of Bees' was my first novel, so I had no process. I was flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, trying to understand how I, as a novelist, would work with story. "

" Reading was a huge part of my life as a child - we were a family of storytellers. "

" I think there must be a place inside of us where dreams go and wait their turn. "

" With pencil, you can always erase. "

" In the early 1800s, religion was often used as a way to keep slavery in place. Slaves were forced to attend the church of their owners, listen to selective dogma that kept them obedient and subservient. "

" I don't go in search of ideas; I try to let them find me. "

Sue Monk Kidd

Try

Find

" Gradually it occurred to me that we spend a great deal of life asleep and that dreams are little narratives, little stories. I thought, 'Who's choreographing this stuff?' "

" Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul. I forfeited my ability to listen creatively to my deepest self, to my own God within. "

" I first saw 'The Dinner Party' in 2007 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. While perusing the Heritage Panels, which honor 999 women who have made important contributions to Western history, I came upon the names of two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke. "

" The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence. "

" I grew up in Georgia, in a small town in the southwest corner of Georgia, actually, called Sylvester. "

Sue Monk Kidd

Small

Corner

" I eventually found that the soul is more than an immortal commodity to win and save. It is the repository of the inner divine, the truest part of us. "